1. Field of the Invention
The invention disclosed herein relates to computer systems and, more particularly, to rules-based systems for order execution and asset movement processing.
2. Description of Related Art
In the securities industry, the traditional approach to placing orders is for a customer to call his stock broker who, typically, is associated with a broker-dealer firm which has personnel or connections with personnel on the floors of various trading exchanges. The customer's order is reviewed by the registered representative with whom he works and a plurality of reviews take place within the registered representative's firm prior to forwarding the customer's order to a specialist on the floor of an appropriate exchange for execution.
Recently, a number of on-line trading companies have been formed which permit customers to utilize their personal computers to place orders for execution over a network, such as the internet.
In the field of artificial intelligence, rules based systems are known in which one or more conditions trigger a rule *resulting in a desired outcome for the condition(s) presented.
There are a number of problems associated with the techniques of the prior art. First, the regulatory environment of securities trading is extremely complex and changes rapidly. Different security firms have different environments and different policies for implementing compliance with regulatory requirements. When market conditions are good, hiring of registered representatives occurs rapidly creating an immediate training problem. When market conditions are bad, downsizing results in reallocation of responsibilities which may also require new training for particular individuals who survive the downsizing. As in any environment in which large amounts of money are involved, there is always a potential for fraud.